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Are high flow and decats legal?


Dicky

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Visited a local company who make st st exhaust systems. There a well recognised company in the area and have been trading for 10yrs or so. They build exhausts for many exotic cars and the guy who owns the garage and who seemed very knowledgeable told me that decats and high flow cats are now illegal with heavy fines attached (cant recall if the fines were on the owner or the installer) anyone else heard of this?

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Hi Flows pass emission tests

 

De cats don't

 

There is a big thread on whether decats are legal or not but lets just say its a grey area, if you run decats then you willl either have to take them off at MOT time or know the guy at the garage doing the MOT ;)

 

I think since 1st of Jan 2012 they are now illegal but not sure. HI flow cats are ok though :thumbs:

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Even though decats werent illegal until recently, you'd never legitamately pass an emissions test with decats fitted, so technically no car on the road thats been built in the last 10yrs should have them.

 

High flow cats are fine so long as they are good enough to get you through the emissions test, which they should do.

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Even though decats werent illegal until recently, you'd never legitamately pass an emissions test with decats fitted, so technically no car on the road thats been built in the last 10yrs should have them.

 

High flow cats are fine so long as they are good enough to get you through the emissions test, which they should do.

 

Chris is spot on. There was another thread discussion on this a few months back and I spent hours researching all the relevant guidelines and legislations and rules etc for MOT`s and the road side tests relating to CATs.

 

The upshot is that there was nothing which said you had to have a cat fitted to your car. Its purely down to the emissions. They test emmisions at MOT time and they can do them in random roadside tests. Having said that, cats are on cars for a reason and that reason is that a lot of cars are not able to pass the emmisions test without them. So, if you remove your cat, then you may fail the emissions test.

 

However, there are new MOT guidelines which have just come out for 2012 and according to the thread ive just read detailing what they are, theres a new failure check which specifically says that if the car came with a cat when it was made, then it has to have a cat for an MOT. I havent read the actual MOT guideline in detail but initial views are that it doesnt say it has to be an OEM cat, and so a high flowing or performance CAT should be fine as long as the cars emissions are correct.

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I bet most MOT testers (and police) won't be able to visually tell the difference between a HFC & a decat which leaves it all down to the emissons check ;)

 

Silenced decat

 

h-dev%20350z%20silenced%20de-cat.jpg

 

Berk HFC

 

berk%20350z%20hfcs.jpg

 

Not lot of difference in the way they look :)

 

Luckily the GTR only has 4 bolts and I can get at my decat without jacking the car up for now :teeth:

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